“What does it mean to be a young adult in today’s world? What does it mean to be a feminist? To be a girl? Rachel Gold’s fantastic Just Girls asks all these questions and more, and the answers are bound to surprise you while also resonating deeply with anyone who has ever felt insecurity, fear, or love.”

“Ella’s story is sweet, brave and easy to relate to. Her relationships with Tucker and Shen especially bring to the discussion the difference between sexuality and gender, a distinction not often considered by the mainstream public. I very much enjoyed the book.”

Remember how I had this great plan to reward people who bought Just Girls in its first six weeks with free, amazing art of the characters? Then I spent some time with art and realized I just want everyone to have it. So forget what I said about emailing me to tell me you bought the book. If you want the art, it’s yours!

Clicking the link below will start downloading the PDF for you (or open it in a browser window so you can save it to your computer). Give it a minute to download. It’s a 93MB file so that you can print it out in high quality if you want.

If you wanted to see me read from Just Girls, here it is — a virtual reading for folks who can’t make it to one of the launch parties or who want a trailer for said parties. (If you’re viewing this on my home page, click the title to go to a page with a bigger video player.) Here’s the link to the page with the preview of chapters one and two in case you want to read those first.

Because I believe readers will fall in love with many of the characters of Just Girls, I’m working with an illustrator to create a free art piece for anyone who buys a copy of the novel between now and Nov. 1, 2014.

In this post you can see some preview sketches from the early drafts (be patient with the page of sketches, it takes a few moments to load). The final piece will be a detailed, two-color, full-page illustration. I’ll also have at least one framed copy signed by me and by the illustrator as a prize for the games we’ll be playing at the Sept. 27 launch party at Addendum Bookstore. READ MORE

Many people know that I’m an avid gamer in addition to writing young adult novels. I get a fair number of questions about how I balance the two because as many writers have discovered it’s hard enough to balance writing and a day job and a social life and staying healthy (all of which are also parts of my life) — and then to try adding gaming to that mix.

The tips below are what I’ve worked out for myself — your process may be different so please engage in wanton experimentation and don’t give up until you find what works for you. You’ll know when you’ve found what works for you because you’ll feel happy and be productive.READ MORE

I had to tell them I’m not under 35 (as you can see in the blog I wrote for Kristin, I’m 42). And then like every other adult in American culture, I freaked out for a little while thinking that I was too old and had waited too long to get published.

The inside of my head sounded like this: Why didn’t I get published younger? What kind of failure is it that I’m not eligible for a young authors award even though I only have two books out? What did I do wrong? Culminating in: Oh my God, I wish I’d been first published at 30, not 40!

Luckily I have a habit of at least trying to critically listen to my ego when it goes on a rant like that, so I delved more deeply into that statement.READ MORE

This morning Business Insider ran a short video: “Gluten Sensitivity Proven False,” which makes a few good points and some dubious ones. First off, a more accurate title for the video would be: “One Study Shows Gluten Not a Factor in IBS Symptoms,” but that’s got a lot less drama to it. (Here’s the video if you’re curious.)

Basically, according to the video only 1% of Americans have Celiac Disease but about 30% report wanting to eat less gluten. Is there such a thing as “non-celiac gluten sensitivity” and how many of that 30% might have it? The bottom line in the video is there isn’t such a thing. The actual title of the video on the page is “The Science is in — Why Gluten Sensitivity is Probably Fake.” I get cranky when people cite “Science” when they really mean one study or a small group of studies and then use emotionally loaded words like “fake.”

My bottom line is this: self-care trumps all. If you feel better eating gluten-free or grain free or only foods that don’t begin with the letter “g,” then that’s what you should eat. Everyone is an individual. Just like there aren’t two one-size-fits-all genders, there aren’t one or two diets for all humanity. Digestion is extremely complicated (at least from the western medicine viewpoint). What works for you doesn’t necessarily work for someone else so if you want to take good care of the people in your life, listen to them and support them if they’re trying different dietary options to be healthier.

Now if you’re curious to see me deconstruct the study and talk about some interesting trends in health and eating, read on:READ MORE

I had a great time today presenting with Stephanie Burt. I’ll add more in a bit but first I just want to post the PPT for anyone who attended and wants to download a copy. Here it is: TransStoriesinSFF140607_rg

Being on the “Solving Gender Neutrality” panel at WisCon over Memorial Day weekend got me thinking about gender more deeply than usual the past few weeks and two things occurred to me:

1. I want to alter my language more because “dude” just isn’t gender neutral like I want it to be.

2. Non-binary femme should be a thing.

The first is pretty straightforward and I’m cheerfully accepting better synonyms for “dude,” which I generally use to mean: person I’m fond of in a co-player sense. Coming from a gaming context, I use it for both men and women, but then I realized that if you don’t know that and you randomly hear me use it, it sounds just a gendered as people who think there’s such a thing as using male pronouns as a universal. So far my favorite suggestion for a replacement has been, “Peep!” We’ll see if I can rock that.READ MORE